Unaccompanied Bandits
by Fruipit
Summary: Apparently, loitering is a crime. And Avatar Kyoshi gets pissed when she has to keep working on a Friday night.


**A/N: Whattup, sexy people? XD Kay, so I _finally_ got a request and as you've probably guessed from the info, it's a... Kyotoph! Kay, so, LavenderGazelle asked me to do one, except she wanted Toph to be blind and it modern. The names and places probably make it seem like it isn't, but there's no bending. Also, think of the Avatar as like a police commissioner.**

**Also, Kyoshi is difficult to portray. And apparently people are sick of me making Toph cry. So, this is for you, LG and guy who actually reads my stuff ^^" **

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Sighing tiredly, Kyoshi finished straightening the stack of papers on her desk, pausing to take a moment to check the condition of her fans, awards from the mayor for commendable actions. She remembered why the old man had given them to her in the first place - he unfortunately had caught wind of her being offered a bigger gig closer to Omashu City, and was desperate for his best cop to stay. No, the fans were a bribe, as much as they were a public declaration that she had his support if any actions she took were... unsatisfactory... in the public eye. Not that she ever expected having to use that - she had planned on staying anyway. Big cities didn't do it for her. Flicking off the lights, she closed her office door. She regretted her decision to finish her paperwork in the station instead of taking it home as soon as she stepped into the single light illuminating the cubicles.

"Avatar Kyoshi!" a voice called as they saw her attempting to sneak away. She sighed at the use of her title. In such a secluded town, she hardly felt it necessary that she receive the full benefits of it, but they had more or less been forced upon her.

"What is it, Officer Suki?" she groaned. Suki made her way towards her boss, dragging a small figure behind her.

"This squirt was loitering behind the Earth Rumble Inc. warehouse."

"Hey!" a high-pitched voice called out, and the ridiculously tall woman looked down at the obscenely short girl who had cried out in indignation. She was perhaps five feet tall, three inches give or take, with charcoal bangs that covered half her face and what Kyoshi could see of it was pallid skin and a sharp jaw. Despite her height, she couldn't have been any younger than sixteen. The longer Kyoshi looked at her, the less sure she became. The girl had a sophisticated aura, and held herself better than any mid-teen Kyoshi had caught - then again, they had also been scared shitless of punishment. This flat-chested girl apparently was too cool to be afraid - something that irritated Kyoshi to no end. Generally, her height was enough to have people cowering in the corner, but this girl was annoyingly unfazed.

"What, Shortstuff? You get caught, you get subjected to me. And I'm in a shit mood because of you - I was about to go home." Ignoring the girl's sputtering, Kyoshi turned to Suki. "Thank you, Suki. You're free to go - I know you have that anniversary dinner. I'll deal with her," she said, nodding at the girl, who had fallen silent with an angry glare.

With an amused expression, crossed with something similar to disbelief, Suki saluted her captain and collected her stuff. As she passed Kyoshi on her way out, she muttered, "Careful, she's a handful," at her boss. Glaring at the girl, Kyoshi moved away from her, back to her office.

"Come on," she said exasperatedly. She had better stuff to deal with at home - instead she was stuck on babysitting duty until the girl's parents could be located. Peering behind her, she saw the girl had a defiant expression on her face, and she hadn't moved a step.

"Hurry up! I don't have all night. I had plans too, you know," growled Kyoshi, but still the girl didn't move. The same insolent sneer remained on her face, but Kyoshi noted how she wilted slightly as the Avatar moved back towards her.

"What's you're problem? Afraid of the dark?" she asked, finally eliciting a reaction from her charge. The girl laughed loudly, a hard edge to her smile.

"You don't know the meaning of the word," she spat, crossing her arms. Fed up with the short girl who was wasting her time, Kyoshi grabbed her by the upper arm and dragged her harshly to her office.

She wasn't expecting her to walk straight into the doorframe.

"Agh, what the fuck?!" the girl cried, grabbing a hold of her forehead. "Is that what you do here, bang people into- what the fuck did I hit anyway?" Kyoshi raised an eyebrow at her reaction. Before she could speak, the minor continued her tirade.

"Oh, look. I'm the Avatar, I'm going to pull girls into walls!" she mocked, rubbing her head.

Groaning loudly, Kyoshi took a hold of the girl's shoulders and steered her into the small office, making sure not to hit her on anything else; she didn't need to give the girl any more reason to complain. Pushing her roughly into a plush chair, Kyoshi pulled her own closer.

"Let's get this over and done with, shall we? Then you can go home, and I can go home, and go on living our lives as though we hadn't wasted each others' time. Sound fair?"

Not expecting a reply, Kyoshi was unfazed when the girl ignored her. Grabbing a form from the remarkably tidy desk, Kyoshi clicked her pen and placed the paper on a clipboard, handing it to the girl.

"Write your name in the space and write, in your own words, exactly what happened," she recited, leaning back on her chair and closing her eyes.

Ten minutes! Ten minutes earlier and she wouldn't have had to deal with this shit. Not that she had actually had any plans, but she still didn't want to spend her Friday night looking after a stupid teenager. Cracking her eye open, Kyoshi noted that the girl hadn't even started writing. She was staring straight ahead, out into the dark streets of Gaoling through the window the office provided.

"Look, hurry up, kid," Kyoshi barked, and although it caused the girl to jump, she didn't tear her eyes away.

"You'd get better results if you were nicer, you know. It's not my fault I'm here, and it's not your fault you're here," the girl said, handing back the blank paper and pen. "I can't fill that out, either."

"Look, I'm not joking around. You had your fun. Now you've been caught and you have to deal with the consequences," Kyoshi growled. She held out the clipboard again, but the girl didn't take it; she completely ignored it, actually, instead preferring to look through the window. It was almost as though she were purposely being irritating.

"Toph."

"Wha- what? Tough? You're walking a thin line-"

"My name is Toph. You would have found that out earlier if you had just asked, you know," the girl named Toph said nonchalantly.

"Toph who?"

The girl reached inside her pocket and pulled out a stick of gum. "Just Toph," she replied, before chewing on the gum nonchalantly.

"Well, _Just Toph_, seeing as how you do know your name, you can fill out this form and go home."

The girl cocked her head, before shaking it. "Sorry, Cap'n. No can do."

Throwing herself backwards, Kyoshi rested her hand on her forehead. "Can't do what?"

"Fill out the form."

Exasperatedly, Kyoshi asked the most obvious question: "Why not?" The irritation in her voice was barely concealed.

Toph frowned thoughtfully, before crying out suddenly, "See, that's why I like you! You actually asked me." With that, she turned her head in Kyoshi's direction and slipped her hand under the charcoal tresses, lifting them from her face. This gave Kyoshi a perfectly unobscured view of the light green irises staring rather awkwardly at her left breast. It was rather creepy, if she had to say so.

Kyoshi didn't speak for several moments, instead piecing all the information she had gathered about the girl together. She was angry that she hadn't seen it earlier.

"You're blind? ...I'm not going to apologise," she said finally, and for some reason Toph smiled.

"Good. I wouldn't accept it anyway," she shrugged. It was as though the strained atmosphere that the duo had found themselves in suddenly dropped away, leaving two hot-headed people with nothing to be hot-headed about.

"How old are you?"

Toph raised her eyebrow. "That better be on the sheet," she said, adding, "I'm sixteen. My birthday is the 9th of August and I'm not telling you my social security number."

Kyoshi quickly wrote down the information, noting that she didn't actually need her number. "Okay, but I need your address."

At this, Toph stiffened, scrunching up her mouth in distaste. "Can I tell you later?" she asked. Kyoshi raised an eyebrow, but decided to humour the girl.

"Sure. Now, what were you doing at the Earth Rumble Incorporated warehouse?"

Toph sighed, but thinking about it, she no longer really cared who knew.

"I was waiting for a friend. I... I do something at the warehouse every few months, and my friend was going to come and pick me up afterwards... only he didn't..." she grimaced a little, already knowing the next question.

"What do you do there?"

"... I fight... M-my parent's thought I was really weak, so they enrolled me in Master Yu's self-defence class. I sort of developed my own style, and I wanted to prove I wasn't helpless, so when I heard people around school talking about a fight going on there, I snuck into it..."

Kyoshi was speechless. Taking another look at the slight girl, she could discern a few bruises - although not nearly enough to suggest she had been in a brawl.

"But, you're blind!"

Toph snorted. "No shit, Sherlock."

"But how did you do it? You aren't going to tell me you use echo-location, or anything like that, are you?"

The blind girl shook her head. "No. They never use all their strength at first, so all I have to do is get in some well-placed shots. I wait until they're close enough to hear, or they hit me, and I retaliate. I use speed to win, not power."

Kyoshi looked at the young girl- no, _teenager_ - with a new level of respect. And disbelief at her stupidity.

"You have to be one of the stupidest people I've ever spoken to," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "You think fighting in an underground tournament is going to make your parent's think you aren't helpless? They're just going to think you're a moron for putting your life on the line!"

Kyoshi had long since stopped lamenting over her lost Friday night. This girl was.. interesting, to say the least, and she found it surprising that she had never heard of her before. Wait...

"You aren't the _Blind Bandit_, are you?" she asked, frowning deeply. The girl nodded, and Kyoshi let out a sound that was part sigh, part growl.

"You better not tell anyone," Toph threatened, leaning forward and glaring into Kyoshi's chest with a fierce determination in her eyes.

"Or what, Shortstuff? Are you really threatening the Avatar?" Just like that, Kyoshi's bad mood came back. "Because that's a stupid thing to do. You realise that street fights are illegal? I could lock you up and no-one would complain - except maybe your parents."

"How do you even know who I am?!" she cried indignantly. "I'm not a criminal!

"And how do I know that you are who you say you are? You could be just a street rat - it would explain why you were hanging around that warehouse, dressed in... that..." Kyoshi's eyes flickered over the girls clothes. Her shirt was dirty yellow and green, and there were several rips and tears that the girl mustn't have noticed. She was barefoot and her green pants had several darker stains that Kyoshi supposed were blood.

"I'm not homeless! It's not like I wanted to be there any longer, but my friend was late!"

"Ahh," Kyoshi drawled, "your mysterious friend. The nameless one. Does he exist?"

Toph bristled at the accusation. "I'm not lying, and I'm not making him up!"

"Why were you waiting out there? You weren't for a friend - you're too independent for that. You were doing something else," Kyoshi accused, and Toph wilted somewhat at her tone.

"I was waiting for someone," she said again, although her voice had lost a considerable amount of volume. "I couldn't leave, I was waiting for someone."

"And so you just decided to come with us when my officer picked you up. You had no way of knowing who she was. What are you hiding?" Kyoshi pressed, watching the girl intently for any change of reaction.

"Well, she got there first..." Toph said quietly, although her eyes were still burning.

"-What?"

Toph sighed angrily, fluffing her bangs out with her breath. "I don't know! Okay?! I lost my cane and I couldn't find my way. Happy now? I guess you're right, I'm an idiot and a moron and I should just be locked away like usual so I don't hurt myself."

Kyoshi's eyebrows raised in surprise, before they narrowed. Toph had leaned back in her chair by this stage, grinding the palms of her hands into her eyes. Kyoshi looked away, almost embarrassed at the girl's reaction, although when she brought her hands away, her eyes were unclouded.

"... When you say, "Locked away like usual," what do you mean?" Kyoshi asked quietly, although her voice resonated power.

Toph fixed her with a look. Not a particular one, but a _look_. "Have you ever seen me around? Or heard my name?"

Kyoshi snorted. "You aren't that special. This is a big town."

"Huh. Well, perhaps you recognise the name Bei Fong?"

Kyoshi's eyes didn't even widen. She merely sat there, fixing the girl with such a stare that she felt it on the back of her neck. Toph squirmed uncomfortably.

"No fucking way," the Avatar said finally. "They're the richest people in the region - I'd know if they had a daughter."

Toph spread her hands out in a half shrug. "See? Locked away. Why do you think I fight? I have to be better than them, sitting on their pompous asses all day... I- you're the first person I've ever really spoken to. I have maids and stuff, but they just ignore me. An' my parent's are really... traditional. They like a kid to be seen and not heard," Toph explained quietly, uncomfortably, before adding in an undertone, "Jackasses."

"Look, Toph," Kyoshi said. She would have continued save for the massive and somewhat unnerving smile plastered on the girl's face. "Why are you smiling like that?"

"You used my name," she answered. Toph blushed slightly, but she was unable to force the grin away. "The maids call me 'Miss' and I don't see my parents much. It was... nice..."

Kyoshi couldn't help but smile momentarily. "Okay, Toph. I can't stop your parent's from doing that, because you are under their care." She saw how the girl's grin fell, and how her eyes darkened slightly. "That being said, perhaps we could come to an arrangement. You would need to stop fighting, but I think I can get your parents to give you some space. After all, who better to teach you about the dangers of the world than the Avatar?"

Toph looked up curiously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you can come down to the station sometimes and I'll 'show you' the bad guys. After all, you're old enough to work here, and we need some more interrogators..."

If she thought Toph's smile was big before, it was nothing compared to her face now. "You in?"

Toph cocked her head momentarily. "Fuck yes!" she cried, punching the air.


End file.
